Internet Free/Busy (IFB) is a feature in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003 that allows you to see when others are free or busy so that you can efficiently schedule meetings. Outlook users have the option to publish their free/busy information to a user-specified URL file server. You can share this URL file server with all users, or you can limit it to a specific set of users.

An Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard named iCal, is the basis for the IFB feature. The IFB feature uses a part of the iCal standard named iCalendar, an emerging standard for the format and storage of schedule information. iCalendar defines a structure for representing free/busy information in a standardized way.

How to publish free/busy information to the Internet

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options.

3. Click Free/Busy Options.

4. Click the Publish at my location check box.

5. In the box, type the URL to which you want to publish the free/busy information.

6. Click OK to close all dialog boxes.

How to view other people's free/busy information on the Internet

You can view the free/busy information for any one of your contacts that publish this data on the Internet. If all your contacts store this information on the same free/busy server, you can set the search path for this information globally for all contacts. Or, if the location of this information varies by contact, you can set the search path specifically for each contact. Use one of the following methods to view other people's free/busy information on the Internet.

How to set the global free/busy search path for all contacts

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options.

3. Click Free/Busy Options.

4. In the Search location box, type the URL from which you want to view other people's free/busy information.

5. Click OK three times to close all dialog boxes.

How to set the free/busy search path for a specific contact

1. In the navigation pane, click Contacts, and then double-click an entry to open a contact.
2. Click the Details tab.
3. Under the text that reads Internet Free-Busy, type the fully qualified path of the location that you want to search for this Contact's free/busy information in the Address box. You can use any valid URL format, such as: http://..., file://\\..., or ftp://....

The following is an example of a valid format:

ftp://Contactserver/Freebusy/Contactname.vfb

Internet free/busy information appears on the Scheduling tab of appointments and meetings

How to plan a meeting by using the IBF feature

1. In the navigation pane, click Calendar, and then click New Meeting Request on the Actions menu.

2. On the Scheduling tab, type the name of each attendee in the All Attendees box.

Outlook follows the URL path (the URL path that was previously specified in the "How to set the Free/Busy search path for a specific contact" section of this article) for the individuals that you invite, and it automatically inserts their free/busy information in the planner.

By default, Outlook publishes and retrieves free/busy information every 15 minutes. To update the free/busy information immediately, click Send And Receive on the Tools menu, and then click Free/Busy Information.